Balmangan Glen

On my regular visits to see my dear old Dad, I pass along this winding route through Balmangan Glen several times each week. Balmangan is on the road as you climb out of the village of Dundrennan with its ruinous Abbey, and before you reach the viewpoint across the beautiful rolling hills of Galloway toward the mountains of Cumbria.

Today the view was somewhat curtailed and the road here was covered in broken branches from the two days of gales that have been lashing the west coast. Fortunately there were no trees down but the wind was teasing out all those last autumn leaves that had found refuge at the bottom of hedgerows and driving them like panicking mice along the road ahead of me, such that I barely caught sight of several partridge that were taking their usual suicidal stroll down the centre of the road. They are very stupid birds. I suppose they have to be otherwise few gun carrying assassins would go home with a brace of partridge. Instead many choose to linger in the middle of the road, oblivious of how much shorter their lives might be.

I drove around for a couple of days with one hanging from the front of the car. it had driven its head into the front grill. I suppose its head is still somewhere inside the engine compartment. I never found it.